In Part Two, we'll continue our conversation with Emily Bridge, LCSW, and learn about social stigmas, historical perspectives, and feeling comfortable with who you are.
"My hope and wish for folks is that, at some point, they're able to live independently as an adult and fully embrace their identity, whatever it might be." - Emily Bridge, LCSW
Emily's 4-Step Action Plan has some great advice. Check it out the detail on Part Two of Emily's recording.
In Part Two, we'll continue our conversation with Emily Bridge, LCSW, and learn about social stigmas, historical perspectives, and feeling comfortable with who you are.
"My hope and wish for folks is that, at some point, they're able to live independently as an adult and fully embrace their identity, whatever it might be." - Emily Bridge, LCSW
Emily's 4-Step Action Plan has some great advice. Check it out the detail on Part Two of Emily's recording.
(INTRO MUSIC)
Welcome - Host Gillian Parker
Hey! Welcome to the All Teens Considered podcast. I'm your host... Gillian Parker.
All Teens Considered is not a replacement for therapy or personalized advice but we hope it provides some insight into issues that you or your friends might be dealing with beyond self-help.
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We want to change the stigma around mental health by making mental health education interesting, relatable, actionable, and totally normal.
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Guest Emily Bridge, LCSW, Introduction
In case you haven't listened to part one of Emily Bridge's interview, I'll give you a recap of what we talked about and let you get to know Emily.
In Part One, Emily gave us a great overview of the LGBTQ Spectrum and the meaning of gender. In Part Two, we'll continue our conversation and learn about social stigmas, historical perspectives, and feeling comfortable with who you are.
Here's a little more about Emily. She's a licensed clinical social worker and board-approved supervisor with experience in individual couples and alternate relationships therapy. She also has extensive training in treating sexual issues as well as more generalized psychotherapy. Her specific passion is helping folks sort through questions about identity and orientation.
Emily is a native Austinite and earned her MSS w from the University of Texas at Austin prior to opening up a private practice, she worked in inpatient and outpatient psychiatric hospital programs since starting her practice in 2011, and she is focused on providing care to adults, navigating life stressors. In addition, she is a proud member of the LGBTQ community and is committed to providing support to fellow members.
Most importantly, Emily's toy poodle mix, Truitt, often joins her at the office to snooze the workday away.
Host Ben Marullo
There’s such a social stigma about these types of things. I've talked a lot about social stigma for mental health, but this is something that I think is on another level when it comes to what we accept and what we don't accept. And, I think, a lot of people don't live in an accepting place.
What do you think about people who live in a society or a culture that doesn't have any kind of support system around it? What are some things that you've seen happen with trends as people grow up? Do they get over it and then it's not something that they think about or is it more tied to their identity? And then how does that play out when they don't have the ability to really express themselves?
Emily
I think that it's so hard because there are so many folks out there who live in non-accepting communities or family systems without support, without openness, without people who’ve got your back. No matter what you might choose to try and push down, your sense of otherness, and by otherness, I mean non-cis, non-straight identity. You might try and push that down, to try and ignore it.
If you're a girl, you might date boys and try never to think about the fact that you don't want to be dating boys or that you don't actually want to kiss these boys that you're going on dates with. Or you might, if you are other gender, you might end up playing up your assigned-at-birth gender.
If you're a boy, you might wear hyper-masculine clothing or if you're a girl you might try and be really, really girly just to try and fit in and push down and ignore what's happening. I think, unfortunately, sometimes that is the only way to survive for folks who live in really unaccepting cultures or family structures.
My hope and wish for folks is that, at some point, they're able to live independently as an adult and fully embrace their identity, whatever it might be. Sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes people stay in a place of nonacceptance of self for a long, long time, even if they had somewhat accepting families or cultures. Because being in the LGBTQ+ community is stigmatized, sometimes people just don't come out to themselves for years and years.
Ben
What are some things that you notice throughout history when it comes to people suppressing these different types of feelings and identifications of who they are? When do you start to see that kind of shift in modern history to be where we are today?
Emily
You know, it's kind of an interesting point, Ben, because I think that actually throughout history, there have been periods of time and or cultures that are much more accepting of other gender or other sexual identity than maybe our American culture has been over the past 200 years.
There are cultures from South America where it is like a prized thing. Someone who becomes a healing person who is other gender, they're sometimes referred to as third gender person, but they're the wise one in the village. It's not only accepted but celebrated. There have been throughout time, men to have lovers who are other men, and that's not only common but totally accepted and out in the public view.
I think that in reality, over history, this has been whatever terminology has been used around that it's been really common, but in American society, American culture, it's been very much looked down on and stigmatized. Thinking more recently over the past 60, 70 years, we've had all kinds of riots and pushes for recognition for the LGBTQ+ community. Fast-forward to when the Marriage Equality Act was passed federally in 2015, it became much more of a topic on the national stage.
I think what I've seen over the last 10 years is that kids who are in middle school and high school are much more open and accepting of exploring this for themselves and much more open and accepting of other kids exploring this. That's not to say that everybody's cool with it.
I know that there's still plenty of kids who face all kinds of terrible consequences from their peers. For being other gender or other identity I do see a huge shift happening. I think 70% of Americans in a very recent poll were in favor of gay marriage, which is a huge change.
Ben
In this country, we place a high value depending on whether you're a Democrat or Republican. I think it's pretty similar to freedom. To be able to do what you want, I think we've really warmed up to this idea that when it comes to marriage and when it comes to these other ideas of who you want to be with, it should apply the same way. Throughout history, there were cultures that looked at things totally different.
Emily
I think the most important thing, as far as feeling comfortable in who you are, is finding community. Whether or not that's other peers who might identify as LGBTQ+ or having access to your elders, it could be someone in their twenties, thirties, forties, sixties who also identify as part of LGBTQ+ community. I think that is the most important thing is just having kind of camaraderie and example of other folks who also might have experienced similar struggles to you.
Ben
What can we do to be more comfortable with both our sexual and gender identity and where we are on the LGBTQ+ spectrum? And if we don't have that immediately available to us, like someone that we look up to, or even as somebody that we know, what are some other things that we can do to just remember that we are okay to be who we are.
Emily
A couple of things. One, the Internet is great because it connects us to all kinds of people. There's the possibility that you could actually find some connection to other peers or elders who are LGBTQ+ in that way. Beyond that, there can be a lot of power even if you are not actively being publicly out but being privately out to yourself.
On days when it feels hard and you feel really alone and isolated saying to yourself, "Yeah, today kind of sucked, but also I know that I'm gay and I know it's okay." Even if you can't say or share that to anyone else, being able to reinforce that to yourself that you are that and it is okay is important.
Ben
Media is a great way. Hopefully, people can listen to this, but I think the depictions of our characters and stories that we tell as well is a great way too.
Emily
Absolutely. And there's so much more mainstream media that is starting to include folks on the LGBTQ spectrum or in that community. I think that's really powerful as well. Absolutely.
Ben
Right. Same with elected leaders and people that hold higher office and things of that nature. We're making a lot of progress now in 2021. That's really great to see people in those role model positions.
I just wanna touch on this really briefly with you about talking about having "the conversation" with people that might not be either understanding or accepting of your place on the spectrum or your sexual and gender identity. How would you start that conversation?
Emily
I think probably the first, most important thing is to think about safety and I don't mean just physical safety, but emotional safety too. Is this person that you're wanting to talk to someone that you trust?
Even if they don't necessarily agree, or you're not sure how they're gonna feel about it, are they someone that in the past you've been able to trust that has responded kindly to you? That's kind of above all. If that person is not someone that has responded kindly to you or has not been particularly trustworthy, then maybe they are not worth your time and effort in telling them this really vulnerable, scary thing right now.
I think that with a parent, it may or may not be worth talking to a parent, especially if a parent has expressed really negative views about LGBTQ+ people.
Not that you never would tell them, but it might be important to think about when you choose to tell them. It might be that you wait until you're out of the house, you're in college, or you're working at a job. That [conversation] may not feel safe until you're out of the house, which is hard. It's hard to hold onto that.
If you know that someone is generally kind to you, is generally trustworthy, but you're not really sure how they're gonna interact or how they're going to react to this news, one of the best things you can do is to start that conversation by saying, "Hey, there's something I want to say. And I'm really scared to say it. I'm really nervous about saying this." Because then it sets that other person up to be aware that this is hard, that maybe they need to be gentle with you. You can say, "I'm really scared to tell you this."
And you can also request that they not say anything back if you're really not sure how they're going to feel about it. You could say "I'm scared. I want to tell you something, but I want you to wait to say anything back to me and we can talk about it again tomorrow."
When you're telling someone something that's hard, that feels hard for you to say it's important to just be direct. To not kind of hem and haw, like not say, well, I think maybe, perhaps it's a possibility that maybe, I don't know, I might be gay. Right. Because then it gives that the other person room to also question what you're saying.
So if you're able to say, "I'm scared to say this. I don't think I'm ready to hear your reaction yet. So maybe we can talk about it again tomorrow. But the thing I want to say is I'm gay." It's going to not give room for the other person to question.
Ben
Those are really great tips. So let's talk about the Action Plan. The topic is "Where am I on the spectrum?"
Emily's Action Plan
Number One. A first step and I can't emphasize this enough is just to be patient with yourself. You may not be able to come up with an answer right away. Along with that, patience is to give permission to yourself that it's okay to be any of the possibilities. So, number one is just be kind to yourself.
Number Two. I encourage you to spend time journaling or free writing. And what I mean by free writing is sitting down with a piece of paper or with a computer screen in front of you and setting a timer for 20 or 30 minutes and writing whatever the words are in your head. They don't have to make sense to anybody else. They don't have to be complete sentences, but just download the thoughts that are in your head and put 'em on paper.
It could be once a week, it doesn't matter, but doing it on a recurring basis. Because a lot of times, when we have all these jumbled-up thoughts in our heads, they don't make sense. Until we start picking 'em out of our head and into the world, journal.
Number Three. Another thing would be if you have friends that you trust talking, talking it out to them. The same thing as free writing, but just talking right, saying it out loud, it could be trusted friends. It could be a school counselor. It could be someone at a church if you have an accepting church or synagogue place of worship. It could be also that you ask your parents for help finding a therapist? So finding somewhere to talk.
Number Four. The last action step is the idea of the spectrum of attraction from 0 to 100. Getting out a piece of paper, draw a line. Write 0 on one side, 100 on the other, and then draw three lines. And then without really thinking too hard about it, mark on those lines, how far toward 0 or 100 you are attracted to male people, female people, or other people. Don't think too hard, just write it down.
And then also doing the same for gender. So identifying as male gender 0 to 100 female gender, 0 to 100 and other genders, 0 to 100 and just marking it down and then revisit that like say every couple of months. Draw a new line, see where you fall that day, and give yourself permission for all of the possibilities.
Ben
That's great advice. And I love the idea of being okay not knowing and being patient because I think we always want to answer things quickly. I've realized in other aspects of life, sometimes you have to be comfortable with not always having that answer right away.
Well, Emily, thank you so much for coming to the show. This has been a great talk and I've personally learned a lot. I hope that we can start having these conversations more because it's so needed in today's world.
Emily
Absolutely. Thanks so much for having me, Ben. I really appreciate it.
(CLOSING MUSIC)
Episode 5 Closing
That's all for Part Two of our interview with Emily Bridge. If you haven't listened to Part One yet, be sure to check it out. Join us again in two weeks for another informative interview about mental health topics that you've told us you're interested in.
Thanks for listening to All Teens Considered.